


Human Conspiracy

by blingyeol



Category: SHINee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cats, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:39:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4445609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blingyeol/pseuds/blingyeol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cats are the owners, of course. They are the clever ones, too and when they say humans are plotting something, humans are <i>definitely</i> plotting something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Conspiracy

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came to me, quite naturally, while taking a bath and hearing my cat meow outside :D  
> By the way these are my ideas of how [Key the cat](http://pawesomecats.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Egyptian-Mau.jpg) looked like and [Onew](http://files.dogster.com/pix/articles/46b4492ab3d5e1c1b9014318a82f659f_1302202044.jpg) :3  
> dedicated to @AkiraxAngel and @pankoma <3

Key wasn’t half as impressed by the new family member as the little girls and generally everyone in the household. They all squealed and baby talked to the tabby cat while Key sat on the drawer, watching them with his bright green, grave eyes. The tabby’s were brown, almost black in the dim light of the hall and they settled on Key’s soon after he was let out of the carrier.

Key hissed at the tabby, letting him know that this was  _his_ territory and  _his_ people the newcomer was messing up with. It didn’t seem to frighten the tabby but at least he had the sense not to hiss back. Key lazily jumped down and walked away, feeling rather distressed.

  
  


Although holing up somewhere meant giving the tabby all the space to explore and mark Key’s territory, there wasn’t much else he could do. The new cat got his own food bowl and water bowl and wherever he went sooner or later someone patted him, scratched him behind the ears or held him up. Key spent majority of the day glaring at _his_ people, incredulous.

By the twilight Key was sunbathing in the last rays on the windowsill when the tabby cautiously entered the bedroom.

“Hey,” he meowed meekly.

_No need to play humble,_ Key thought. _I know what you’re trying to do. Steal my people._

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” apologized the tabby but Key was already on the ground, stretching his front paws and showing of his sharp, long claws. He hardly ever bothered to scratch because sooner or later he was shooed and brought to the ugly piece of ropes wired up a pole that was unpleasant to the touch.

Key made sure to hiss at the newcomer again, trying to look as menacing as possible. It didn’t work. The tabby didn’t budge nor respond in any way, he just sat there rather sloppily and stared at him, inviting him for a fight but without making the first move.

“I’m not scared of you,” the tabby meowed after a moment of tension-filled silence.

He had no reason to be, if one were to be honest. Key was a polished Egyptian Mau, with fur as smooth as a silk and the colour of a shade darker silver with black spots all over him. There wasn’t much threat in his eyes even when they narrowed and he was considerably smaller than the tabby, too.

“Look,” Key hissed, “this is _my_ house and _my_ territory you’re standing on.”

“I know,” the tabby replied, well aware of Key’s scent being all over the place. “And I’d much prefer to stay in my own space but they brought me here. Nothing we can do about that.”

_No, nothing we can do about that_ , Key sighed. Humans always caused some kind of trouble and solving it proved hard more often than not. Years ago, he was brought here, too. Thankfully there was no cat or any other animal present at the time but he admitted it’s not easy being in the tabby’s paws.

“Onew!” came a loud shout from the living room. “Ah, there you are.”

Key was starting to concede the tabby is a poor fellow and that he ought to be less hard on him but the human lady brought him a snack. _Key’s_ snack, the meat stick that tasted like thousand flavours and one and that was positively only _his_ because he liked it best.

“Now you’ve crossed the line,” Key commented as the tabby - Onew - munched on the stick.

  
  


Despite the stormy beginning of their relationship, the two cats now resident in Kim family’s spacy house got along better than anyone expected. It was partly thanks to Key’s hate towards violence - he’d get his fur messy and scratched - and Onew’s peaceful nature. The tabby was as curious as he were peaceful, and that drew Key attached to him.

“What’s beyond there?”

“Dunno. Never been there.” Key glanced at the always locked door, interest rising up. Although he would never admit it, he’d always wanted to go through there. His gracefulness kept him from meowing at the door until opened but that was exactly what he wanted to do.

Thankfully, there was Onew.

His meows were deeper, raspier than Key’s and could grow into unexpected volume that seemed to drive the people crazy, especially if kept at for longer than five minutes.

“What do we got here?” It was the lady who came rushing in, alarmed. “You wanna go outside?”

Onew meowed _yes_.

“You sure ‘bout that?” Key asked the tabby gingerly. As much as he wanted the door opened, Key wasn’t as keen to go _outside_. The word kind of had a dread to it.

“About what?” Onew meowed back.

“Going outside, as the lady asked.”

Before Onew could assure anyone the door was already open, summer breeze ruffling their fur.

“Be careful out there, Onew,” the lady told him, left the door open and disappeared into the room on the far side of the hall.

Onew stepped onto the mat outside the door and without further investigation rushed out. Key called after him but the tabby was far gone, lost in the tall grass below the terrace.

“Come here!” the tabby called out, playfully chasing after something tiny with wings.

Key watched him cautiously through the slit of the door, his paws twitching. The chasing flying things looked tempting enough but it was still _outside_. “I’m an indoor cat!” he meowed loudly

“So?”

“So I can’t go outside.”

“What sort of logic is that?”

 _His_ logic. The one where Key knew windowsills and the warm spots below a heater, not the cold and menacing wind outside. This house was rather new to him. Before the family lived in a flat and the always locked door lead to an uninteresting, unwelcoming hall with a lot of stairs. It took a while to gather his pride and stop hissing at his people for forcefully moving him here. Sure, the house was big and nice to explore but there was the terrifying _outside_.

Key shook off his fears. If Onew can do it, so can he. The day he’d be afraid of something the newcomer isn’t would be the end of his rule over this household, he told himself.

“It’s wet,” Key complained as he joined the tabby in the tall grass, towering over both of the cats. In front of them spread a meadow as wide as the house itself and much longer.

“I like it,” Onew countered. “I meant to ask, do you understand them?”

“People?”

“Yeah. ‘Cause I never quite did, apart from when they say _hi_ or _food_ , I guess.”

Key gave it a thought. Back when he was a kitten that was as much as he understood as well. “I guess I learnt. Mostly because I saw the littlest one growing up and they had to teach her to talk. Still can’t make out everything, though. Sometimes they say such dumb things.”

“And do dumb things,” Onew added while licking his front paws.

“Tell me about it.”

They sniggered together, bound by the same feelings towards the people they had to live with.

The grass rustled and Key tensed up, ears stretched as tall as possible. He tried to look casually bored when announcing “I’m going inside” when in fact he was plain terrified.

  
  


Onew liked to sit on the drawer in the hall a lot, Key noted. That was fine because he didn’t like it there. Too cold in the hall and too close to the outside. Still, he couldn’t allow the tabby to think he owned the place just yet, and so he jumped up next to him.

“The lady’s in there again,” Onew meowed, his brow furrowing in contemplation.

“In the bathroom?” Key suggested.

“She’s there quite a lot,” the tabby continued, not registering Key’s efforts to take up as much space on the drawer for himself as possible. “Granny did the same.”

“Granny?” Key was lying down, stretching his paws suspiciously close to Onew’s.

“My previous person. She got into that room - did you call it bathroom? - and never got out until I grew bored of waiting for her. I’m telling you there’s something to that.”

“What would there be? It’s a bathroom,” Key replied casually. The tabby acted weirder than the humans sometimes.

“Whatever it is, they’re plotting something in there,” Onew made his point, turning his head from constantly hypnotizing the door to look at Key.

Key laughed at the huge, brown eyes with narrowed pupils. “It’s a bathroom, Onew. It’s for _bathing_.”

“What’s that?”

“Something you could very well get to know,” Key remarked. The tabby only cleaned himself when extremely dirty, other times he left his fur shaggy and unkempt, to Key’s dismay. “It’s a _cleaning_ room.”

“They go to a special room to clean? And for so long?”

“Don’t look so surprised, people are cleanly creatures.” Key sniffed at the long forgotten winter coat lying on the drawer beneath him and cringed. “Or trying to be. Unlike you.”

“At least I’m not a pretentious jerk who’s trying to hound me out every second,” Onew retaliated, paws resolutely holding their ground where Key’s tried to stretch.

“I would never,” Key meowed in a silken voice, lazily lying as wide and long as possible.

The tabby poked his side, without claws drawn but still with a dangerous amount of force. Key scrambled to his feet and for a few seconds they sat facing each other, evaluating the situation. Key presented his wannabe menacing hiss, baring the rather blunt teeth he possessed. The tabby was the first to walk away, very slowly.

  
  


They called it a truce the next day. It was a lazy Sunday, with kids playing outside and the adults watching them from the terrace, leaving the cats to their own. Onew didn’t dare join Key’s favourite spot on the sunlit bedroom windowsill, instead he lied beneath on the carpet where a few stray rays of sun reached as well.

It was tiring to hiss at the tabby all the time and he was more fun when he talked nonsense, so Key was the one to break the ice and meow: “Tell me about that conspiracy.”

“The bathroom one?”

“Unless there’s more of them?”

“I’ve had my suspicions about them going outside before, but here you can see what’s outside, so that’s been cleared up. Although I still think there might be much more of the outside than we see here and maybe it’s all connected to the bathroom. Like, you know, they plot something there and then go execute it outside. The outside beyond  _this_ outside.”

It didn’t make any sense, just like much anything the tabby’s mind produced. _Poor confused fellow_ , Key thought. “Already told you the bathroom’s for cleaning.”

“So what? We’re not there when they lock up to see if they’re really cleaning up there.” Onew sat up, all excited about this. “I ought to break there one of these days.”

“Oh please,” Key meowed tiredly. “What kind of a conspiracy would they be plotting? To get rid of us? They love us, Onew. We got them wrapped around our paws.”

“That’s what they think about us, too,” Onew pointed out. He was looking up at Key still lying on the windowsill. “And look at what think about that.”

That was the first plausible point Onew made that day. But still, Key didn’t believe any such thing as the stupid humans plotting anything against them. They made stupid mistakes but plotting was beyond their capabilities. That was their domain.

“Whatever,” Key dismissed the talk and jumped down, “if they do plan anything, we can outwit them. Or me, at least, not so sure ‘bout you.”

Onew frowned at him and at the close distance they stood away from each other. He was about to note that he’s the clever one out of the two of them but before he could do that, there was a thud followed by footsteps.

“They’re back. And soon to go wash, I’m sure. There’s your chance,  _silly_ .”

  
  


Onew spent hours in the bathroom, outlasting each end every single member of the household. He refused to be the silly one, there ought to be _something_. He’d hide beneath the sink early in the morning because he knew the lady always went in then. In the evening he did the same, as it was time for the kids and the man.

They made splashing sounds and one of the girls sang. That was it. No conspiracies, no whispers to someone over that odd black box they used for long monologues.

But they knew he was there. The littlest one spied him early on and intentionally splashed water beneath the sink, twisting her little arms and making the whole bathroom into a little pool (but never quite reaching him down there in the corner).

So maybe, they knew and behaved so that he doesn’t discover anything. These humans were surprisingly smart.

  
  


Brooding and defeated, Onew dragged into the bedroom, daringly sitting on the windowsill. Key was nowhere to be seen and even if he came, he ought to have some high ground when admitting his defeat.

“Hey silly one,” came from the door soon afterwards, the slender cat that Key was sneaking through the slit and into the room.

“They are plotting something,” Onew meowed. “It’s just not right now. Maybe they’ve already plotted it all and now are only waiting to execute the orders.”

Key jumped onto his spot, settling close to Onew. “There’s no space for you.”

“The windowsill’s long enough for both of us,” Onew remarked.

“Nope, best spot’s right here. You move.”

They glared at each other, lashing their tails.

Noise in the hall interrupted them. The front door opened, Key knew the familiar creak. The two of them rushed down, their quarrel forgotten. Onew ran straight into the hall and onto the drawer, while Key watched through the slit.

The scene felt like a repetition of Onew’s entrance few months ago. The kids came swarming in, holding the little pup that eagerly licked their faces. _A pup_. They dare bring another creature into his house. Key hissed, gaining all the attention.

“Oh, shoo,” the littlest one told him.

_Shoo_ , Key thought bitterly.

Onew hissed, too.

The pup looked at them with his wide, black eyes, startled. He nuzzled his tiny face beneath the littlest one’s jumper and the girl laughed out. “You two are scaring lil’ Jjong!”

The tabby ran back into the bedroom, making Key back out to let him in. “I told you they were plotting something and here you have it.”

“Nasty little bastards,” Key swore.

“Friends?” Onew meowed hastily, as if they needed this settled quickly before the pup can endanger their positions.

Key measured him for what seemed like eternity. “Allies,” he finally allowed. “That’s a great deal more efficient than _friends_ , I’d say.”


End file.
